Terminal Commands For Mac

• Mac Terminal Tutorial

Terminal (officially called Terminal.app) is, strictly speaking, an emulator and works off most typical UNIX commands (OS X is a UNIX-based system, as opposed to Windows, which is NT-based). Unlike OS X, which has a graphical user interface (shortened to GUI), Terminal works off a text-based interface and all commands have to be typed in - this. Terminal is Mac OS X way into the command line world. It is designed for you to typing in specific commands that you would not be able to do otherwise. This is great for customizing your Mac and unveiling hidden features. It is also a good way to destroy you system because you screwed something up.

This is a complete A- Z index of all Mac commands and the terminal events associated with those commands. We have compiled this list by using official sources and have explained more clearly and elaborately about each of them. We have also added two additional columns specifying whether or not the command is an inbuilt system one. The final column also displays the Mac version support for each of these commands.

IMPORTANT: If you are not an advanced user and have no knowledge on how to use the terminal commands, please do not try to experiment. These are meant for medium and advanced users ONLY.

Mac Terminal Commands – A to Z

Command	InBuilt	Command Action and Event	All
alias	Yes	Creation of a Alias for current User	Yes
alloc	No	Free Memory is Listed	Yes
apropos	No	String search in What is database	NA
awk	No	Scan and overwrite Text inside file and files	NA
basename	No	Change full path name to path name	NA
bash	No	Bourne-Again Shell	NA
bg	Yes	Send to background	Yes
bind	Yes	Read line Key is displayed	Yes
bless	No	Assign Boot and start-up options	NA
break	Yes	Exit a redundant loop	Yes
builtin	Yes	Execute a built in shell command	Yes
bzip2	No	Compress and decompress a file	Yes
cal	No	The calendar is displayed	Yes
caller	Yes	Subroutine call context is returned	Yes
case	Yes	Conditional statement	Yes
cat	No	Append and Display file content	Yes
cd	Yes	Change current Directory	Yes
chflags	No	Change flags	NA
chgrp	No	Modify Group Ownership	NA
chmod	No	Change group permissions	NA
chown	No	Modify File owner and permissions	NA
chroot	No	Execute a command using another root directory	NA
cksum	No	Print and display checksum	NA
clear	No	Clear current terminal screen contents	NA
cmp	No	Simply compares two files	NA
comm	No	Line by line comparison of two sorted lines	Yes
command	Yes	Run or Execute a command	Yes
complete	Yes	Edit or modify completion of a command	Yes
continue	Yes	Resume a loop	Yes
cp	No	Copy Command	NA
cron	No	Run or Execute a prescheduled command	NA
crontab	No	Schedule command for execution after an assigned time	NA
csplit	No	Split a file into context-determined pieces	NA
curl	No	Upload or download data from a server	NA
cut	No	Cut a file into parts	Yes
date	No	Display or modify date time	Yes
dc	No	Display Desk Calculator	NA
dd	No	(Copy a file) Data Dump	NA
declare	Yes	Declare and assign attributes for a variable	Yes
defaults	No	Set visual preference options for hidden files	NA
df	No	Show unused disk space	Yes
diff	No	Show difference between two files	Yes
diff3	No	Show difference between three files	NA
dig	No	Command to lookup DNS details	NA
dirname	No	Convert full path name to path	NA
dirs	Yes	Display cached directories	Yes
diskutil	No	Disk utility command	Yes
disown	Yes	Remove a job from current session	Yes
ditto	No	Same as copy command	Yes
dot_clean	No	Remove dots and underscores from a context files	NA
drutil	No	Disk drive utility command	NA
dscacheutil	No	Flush DNS or cache	NA
dscl	No	Command-line utility for directory service	Yes
dseditgroup	No	Manage groups and users	Yes
dsenableroor	No	Command to enable root access for a terminal	NA
dsmemberutil	No	Show groups and users rights	NA
du	No	File space usage estimation	NA
echo	Yes	Display an entered message on the screen	Yes
ed	No	A text editor program	Yes
enable	Yes	Enable or disable system shell commands	Yes
env	No	Display or Modify environment variables	Yes
eval	Yes	Evaluate one or more commands or arguments	Yes
exec	Yes	Execute command	Yes
exit	Yes	Exit shell	Yes
expand	No	Expand a Tab	NA
expect	No	Pre assigned dialogue exchange for interactive programs	NA
export	Yes	Assign environment variable	Yes
expr	No	Evaluate an expression or set of expressions	Yes
fc	No	Fix command	NA
fdisk	No	Format disk command	NA
fg	Yes	Bring a job to front	Yes
file	No	Analyse file type	Yes
find	No	File search matching requested criteria	NA
fmt	No	Reformat Text in a paragraph	NA
fold	No	Wrap text to automatically adjust with working area	NA
for	Yes	Simple Loop command	Yes
fs_usage	No	File system display usage	Yes
fsactl	No	Enable or disable ACL support for File System	NA
fsck	No	Check and repair file systems	NA
ftp	No	FTP manager	NA
getfileinfo	No	Get file attributes	Yes
getopts	Yes	Parse the positional parameters	Yes
goto	No	Jump to an assigned point and then continue program execution	NA
grep	No	Search file with a certain pattern	NA
groups	No	Display a user’s group name	NA
gzip	No	Compress and decompress a file	Yes
halt	No	Shutdown and Restart the system	NA
hash	Yes	Refresh command cache and path names	Yes
hdiutil	No	Hard drive interface Utility Tool	Yes
head	No	Print first line from a text file	Yes
history	Yes	History Command	Yes
hostname	No	Display or modify System name	NA
iconv	No	Convert character set of file(s)	NA
id	No	Display user and group IDs	Yes
if	Yes	Conditional Command statement	Yes
info	No	Display help information	NA
install	No	Copy and assign attributes of a file	Yes
ipconfig	No	Configure network attributes and assign values	NA
jobs	Yes	List all currently active jobs	Yes
join	No	Join command	NA
kextfind	No	List the kernel extension	NA
kickstart	No	Configure and set Apple Remote Desktop properties	NA
kill	No	Terminate a process directly	Yes
l	No	List file in original long format	NA
last	No	Indicate last login information of a users and additional info	NA
launchctl	No	Launch daemons or agents	NA
less	No	Display output on screen accommodating data per window	NA
let	Yes	Evaluate an expression or set of expressions	Yes
lipo	No	Convert binary format	Yes
ll	No	List file in original long format, also display hidden files	Yes
ln	No	Interlink files	NA
local	Yes	Assign local variable	Yes
locate	No	Find a file or files	Yes
login	No	log-in your system	NA
logname	No	Display current users login name	NA
logout	Yes	Exit login shell	Yes
lpr	No	Print file or files	Yes
lprm	No	Remove queued print jobs	Yes
lpstat	No	Printer info and current status	Yes
ls	No	List a file information	NA
lsof	No	List currently opened files	NA
lsregister	No	Reset Launch Service database	NA
man	No	Display Help manual	Yes
mdfind	No	Spotlight search command	Yes
mdutil	No	Spotlight search command utility	Yes
mkdir	No	Create new directory	Yes
mkfifo	No	Build FIFOs	Yes
more	No	Display output data one screen at one time	NA
mount	No	Mount a file system	NA
mv	No	Cut or rename directories or files	NA
nano	No	Bring up text editor	Yes
net	No	Configure network resources	NA
netstat	No	Display network information	NA
networksetup	No	Assign network attributes	Yes
nice	No	Set command priority	NA
nohup	No	Hang-up a command	NA
ntfs.util	No	NTFS utility command	Yes
onintr	No	Control shell action	NA
open	No	Open up a file or location	NA
osacomplie	No	Command to Compile an Apple script	NA
osasdript	No	Execute an AppleScript	NA
passwd	No	Modify user password directly	Yes
paste	No	Merge lines from two or more files	Yes
pbcopy	No	Copy the data to clipboard	NA
pbpaste	No	Paste the data from Clipboard	NA
ping	No	Check a network connection	NA
pkgutil	No	Display or change Installed packages info	NA
plutil	No	Property list command utility	Yes
pmset	No	Configure Power Management settings	Yes
popd	Yes	Restore previous value of current directory	Yes
pr	No	Modify Text files to print	Yes
printenv	No	Display all environment variables	Yes
printf	Yes	Print command	Yes
ps	No	Display Process status	Yes
pushd	No	Save and change current directory	NA
pwd	Yes	Print currently Working Directory	Yes
quota	No	Display disk limitation and usage	Yes
rcp	No	Copy files across machines/systems	Yes
read	Yes	Read first line from an output file	Yes
readonly	Yes	Assign read only attribute to a file/directory	Yes
reboot	Yes	Reboot a system	Yes
return	Yes	Exit Function	Yes
rev	No	Reverse file lines	NA
rm	No	Remove file(s)	NA
rmdir	No	Remove directory(ies)	Yes
rpm	No	Bring up Remote Package Manager tool	Yes
rsync	No	Remotely copy a file	NA
say	No	Text to speech conversion	NA
screen	No	Manage Multiplex terminal and run remote shells via ssh	NA
screencapture	No	Capture the screen image	Yes
sdiff	No	Merge or modify two files	Yes
security	No	Configure security options for a system	Yes
sed	No	Stream Editor Utility	NA
select	Yes	Display list of Items	Yes
set	Yes	Set shell variable	Yes
setfile	No	Set file attributes	NA
shift	Yes	Shift positional parameters	Yes
shopt	Yes	Configure shell options	Yes
shutdown	No	Shutdown/restart Mac OS X	NA
sleep	No	Sleep after an assigned time frame	Yes
softwareupdate	No	Software Update Command	Yes
sort	No	Sort the text files	Yes
source	Yes	Execute command from file	Yes
split	No	Split files into like sized pieces	NA
stop	No	Stop a process or currently running job	NA
su	No	Substitute a user identity	Yes
sudo	No	Execute command as some other user	Yes
sum	No	Print checksum value for a file	NA
suspend	Yes	Suspend shell execution	Yes
sw_vers	No	Print Mac Operating System version	NA
system_profiler	No	Report a system configuration	Yes
tail	No	Display the last lines from a file	NA
tar	No	Archiver Utility	Yes
tcpdump	No	Network Traffic dump	NA
tee	No	Redirect multiple file output	NA
test	Yes	Conditional evaluation	Yes
textutil	No	Modify Text file formats	NA
time	No	Calculate Program Resource Usage	Yes
times	Yes	Print shell along with shell process time	Yes
top	No	Display process related information	Yes
touch	No	Change the file timestamps info	Yes
tr	No	Modify Characters or delete them	NA
traceroute	No	Display Trace Route path to assigned host name	NA
trap	Yes	Execute command when shell receives signal	Yes
tty	No	Print terminal filename on stdin	NA
type	Yes	Describe command name and type	Yes
ufs.util	No	Mount or unmount a UFS file system	NA
ulimit	Yes	Limit system resources usage	Yes
unalias	Yes	Delete an alias	Yes
unamask	No	Mask User file creation	NA
uname	No	Print System Info	Yes
unexpand	No	Space to tab converter	Yes
uniq	No	Uniquify the files	Yes
units	No	Unit scale converter command	NA
unmount	No	Unmount a mounted device	NA
unset	Yes	Remove function or variable names	Yes
until	Yes	Loop command	Yes
uptime	No	Display System Runtime information	NA
users	No	Print all username of the current session	NA
uucp	No	Unix to Unix copy command	Yes
uudecode	No	Decode a file	NA
uuencode	No	Encode a file	NA
vi	No	Visual Text Editor	Yes
wait	Yes	Wait for process completion	Yes
whatis	No	Search what is database	NA
where	No	Report all command instances	NA
while	Yes	Loop command	Yes
who	No	Print all names of the users of the current session	NA
whoami	No	Display or Print current username and info details	NA
write	No	Send a user a message	NA
xargs	No	Execute utility by passing arguments	Yes
yes	No	Print a string value until and unless interrupted by a user	NA

Foot note: N/A – Data not available.

Mac Terminal Tutorial

If you feel this list lacks any particular command which has been recently added to the Mac terminal, you can improve this article by mentioning it in the comment section.